By Matthew Denis
The President of Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Engr. Margaret Aina Oguntala has called on all tiers of Government to prioritizes local engineers to take the lead in designing and executing key projects in the country.
The President made the disclosure while delivering her opening speech at the International Training Workshop organized by the Nigerian Institute of Highway and Transportation Engineers (NIHTE) held in Abuja on Monday.
She said ” this occasion is suitable for me to highlight the need for our government to adhere strictly to the local content policy. Our engineers must be given the opportunity to actively participate in nation-building through infrastructure development.
” Our local expertise is vast and capable by enabling Nigeria engineers to take the lead in designing and executing key projects, we will not only grow our economy but also build a stronger, self reliant engineering sector.
” The government must ensure that Nigerian engineers are at the forefront of these initiatives. Utilizing their knowledge to build the roads and bridges that will stand the test of tim.
The President appealed to experienced engineers to provide platforms in training young engineers as the future of the profession.
” We must invest in them, nurture their potential and provide them with platforms such as this to sharpen their skills and grow their expertises. “
Earlier, the National Chairman of NIHTE, Engr. Saidu Hassan explained that the five day workshop in collaboration with Essency UK is designed to cover the principle, concepts, component, techniques and benefits of construction and maintenance of road infrastructure.
Speaking on the condition of Nigeria roads, the Chairman lamented that the state of our roads as of today are not in good shape thereby calling for privatization of the roads like the telecom company then.
He said “we as a professional body, we’ve been calling for road reform because we’ve been saying that the annual budget allocation is not sufficient enough to maintain and build our roads. So the road reform will provide the road sector fund that will provide the source of funding for the road project.
“The road authority will carry out those functions to build and maintain our roads, funding and the gaps. There are some interventions but the intervention we are having today are not enough to have the best roads we can have in Nigeria. Therefore, we need private sector to come into the road development.
“Like in the telecom, you can see the change from NITEL to what we have today with the GSM. When we have this reform, it’s the same thing we have in the road sector. So when we have that, we can have the roads fixed and better maintained. “